2010 East Metro Showcase pairings announced

From Wishoops.net, here's the schedule for this year's East Metro Showcase at Johnson. Unfortunately it goes up against the Border Battle again this year but as always the event will more than hold its own.

NOTE: Sioux City Heelan unable to attend due to ice conditions in Iowa.  Updated schedule is below.

Friday January 22, 2010
4:00 p.m. -- St. Paul Johnson vs. St John’s NW Military Academy (WI)
6:00 p.m. -- Superior (WI) vs. Milwaukee Vincent (WI)
8:00 p.m. -- Hopkins (MN) vs. Maple Northwestern (WI)

Saturday January 23, 2010
10:00 a.m. -- Superior (WI) vs. Minneapolis Washburn (MN)
Noon -- St John’s NW Military Academy (WI) vs. Eastview (MN)
2:00 p.m. -- Maple Northwestern (WI) vs. LaCrosse Aquinas (WI)
4:00 p.m. -- Milwaukee Vincent (WI) vs. St Paul Central (MN)

2009 Season Previews Start Next Week

The time has come. So mark your calendars, hide the women and children and prepare to be amazed (ok, maybe not). I'll be starting my annual conference and section preview series on Monday night October 12th. I'll do 1 preview a day of each of the 11 metro conferences (I'll do separate previews of the 2 divisions of the Tri-Metro) and independents and then I'll get into section predictions for the 11 metro sections. I'll do an overview for the not-so-hardcore fan and then I'll wrap it all up with The Czar's Top 50 Metro Players.

For those of you who are Minnesota Preps premium subscribers (and if you're not, why not???!!), I'll also be doing a Question and Answer session with a coach from each league. The plan is to link to that piece from my preview. So you can read my perspective and then see what a coach has to say about their league. I think that will be a nice addition that I hope you'll enjoy.

Week 3 Fall Schedule

A very light weekend with the MBA league taking the weekend off, a quiet Saturday at the Magic league and a ravaged MYAS league on Sunday at Hopkins (due to a camp).

Magic Fall League at Jefferson
Saturday
3 PM - Burnsville vs Gamblers - Ct 1
3 PM - Waconia vs Transitions - Ct 2
5 PM - Burnsville vs Waconia - Ct 1
5 PM - Gamblers vs Transitions - Ct 2

Sunday
12 PM - Eden Prairie vs Mix Ct 5
1 PM - Twolves vs Mix Ct 5
2 PM - Twolves vs Eden Prairie Ct 5
3 PM - Eagan vs West Wisconsin - Ct 1
3 PM - Prior Lake vs Bethany Ct 4
3 PM - Edina vs Holy Family White Ct 5
4 PM West Wisconsin vs Panthers Ct 1
4 PM Holy Family Green vs Prior Lake Ct 4
4 PM Edina vs SW Christian Ct 5
5 PM Eagan vs Panthers Ct 1
5 PM Holy Family Green vs SW Christian Ct 4
5 PM Holy Family White vs Bethany Ct 5

MYAS at Hopkins
Wayzata vs Owatonna Ct 1 - 9 AM
Lakeville S vs Wizards Ct 2 - 9 AM
New Prague vs Wolves Ct 3 - 9 AM
MDB White vs Apple Valley Ct 4 - 10 AM
Rochester Mayo vs Mound-Westonka Ct 5 - 10 AM
Waconia vs Minnetonka Ct 6 - 10 AM
Owatonna vs Wizards Ct 4 - 11 AM
Lakeville South vs Wolves Ct 5 - 11 AM
New Prague vs Wayzata Ct 6 - 11 AM
Minnetonka vs Rochester Mayo Ct 4 - Noon
MDB White vs Mound-Westonka Ct 5 - Noon
Waconia vs Apple Valley Ct 6 - Noon

MYAS at Forest Lake
Centennial vs Eastside (Stillwater) Ct 1 - 9 AM
North Branch vs Roseville Ct 2 - 9 AM
Centennial vs North Branch Ct 1 - 11 AM
Eastside vs Roseville Ct 2 - 11 AM
Ellsworth vs Forest Lake Ct 1 - 1 PM
Irondale vs Cardinals Ct 2 - 1 PM
Forest Lake vs Cardinals Ct 1 - 3 PM
Ellsworth vs Irondale - Ct 2 3 PM

No mods to letter of intent

Interesting news from the NCAA today that schools cannot agree to modifications of the standard letter of intent for athletes. This came to a head as kids were insisting that schools grant them written waivers that allowed them to leave without penalty. Ex: coach leaves. NCAA has no outlawed that.

Read the Sporting News article about it here.

You have to make shots

I'm a big Hubie Brown fan (after all the real Czar is a protege of Hubie so why wouldn't I be). He has a video out where he talks about getting more shots when you have a bad team to be successful. Here are his ways to get more shots

• Offensive Rebounds
• Turnovers
• Free Throws

Bow to Hubie, take it as gospel, use it next season. Then I took these ideas and applied them to the 28 games during last year's state tournament. And I came up with a very strange result.

The 4 class A games where there was a difference in shot attempts, the team with more shots lost all 4 games. That included Cass Lake-Bena getting 18 more shots than Ada-Borup and losing by 38. Ellsworth returned the favor by giving Ada-Borup 23 more shots but they still won by 9. Chisholm 9 more shots in the title game vs GHEC but they lose by 14.

In 4 of the 7 AA games, the team with more shots lost including 3 blowouts. St. Bernard's 13 more shots than Pelican Rapids and they lose the title game by 12.

The same was true in class AAA. Mankato West 13 more shots and they lose by 13 to Washburn in the title game.

3 cases of this happened in the AAAA bracket. Sibley 12 more shots, lost by 4 to Jefferson in the quarters. Apple Valley 11 more shots lost by 8 to Osseo in the quarters. Hopkins had 14 more shot attempts but only beat Osseo by 10 in the championship game.

Moral of the story. Those teams that had more attempts and lost (or Hopkins in the AAAA title game) all shot horribly.

Chisholm 33.9% in their loss to GHEC
Ada-Borup 33.8% in their loss to Ellsworth
Cass Lake-Bena 22.2% in the loss to Ada-Borup
St. Bernard's 38.6% in the loss to Pelican Rapids
Triton 33.9% in the loss to St. Bernard's. Despite 4 more shots they got beat by 19.
New London-Spicer 34.5% in a loss to Pelican Rapids.
Montevideo 36.2% in loss to HLWW
Mankato West 32.8% in loss to Washburn
Johnson 39.1% in loss to Washburn
Spring Lake Park 45.2% in loss to Mankato West
St. Cloud Tech 32.6% in loss to Hopkins with 2 more shots, lost by 19.
Sibley 41.5% in loss to Jefferson
Hopkins 37.7% with 14 more shots and only beat Osseo by 10 in AAAA title game.

Horrendous shooting percentages and they were outshot by their opponents. You can get more shots but ultimately you have to make plays and put the ball in the basket.

Week 2 of 2009 Fall Leagues

Week 2 of fall leagues is in the books. The notes

• MYAS claim "Best and largest pool of certified officials in the state." was totally debunked today. Officials that I saw doing the varsity boys games at Hopkins as a whole, did not compare to the MBA league.
• Nice to see Duluth East coach Chuck Tolo in the house on Saturday following his kids. With the top programs, you seem to always see the head guys out following their guys.
  
• Credit to Aaron Ziman for outplaying Jasper Duberry in Select's loss to Champlin Park.
• D3 schools and AAU guys at the MBA this weekend (and the coolest guy in the NSIC!). Nice to see the interest.
• Minnehaha with 12 oz cans of Pepsi this week instead of the usual 1 Liter bottles. The horror. I'm an addict, I have a habit to maintain. When I mentioned this to the concession stand, I got the perfect response. "You can always come back for more". Well said, I got nothing for that one.
• The stars were out this weekend. I thought last weekend had some big performances, but some very nice performances by known names this weekend.
  
• Fun to see a couple of good quality young point guards playing. Kashif Hayes (2013) from St. Louis Park is 1. The other is from the south metro is the younger brother of former DeLaSalle/Hopkins star Jadee Jones.
  

Read all about the weekend in my Minnesota Preps column. (Click here to read)

I also did a piece on summer recruiting on my Star Tribune blog. Read that here.

2009 Week 2 Fall League Schedule

Here's this week's fall league schedule. Game of note are in bold

Saturday at Minnehaha Academy
Orono vs Edison 10 AM - Ct 1
NYA vs Anoka 10 AM - Ct 2
St. Anthony vs Blake 10 AM - Ct 3
Orono vs St. Anthony Noon - Ct 1
Blake vs Anoka Noon -Ct 2
Edison vs NYA Noon - Ct 3
Maple Grove vs Hoops Training 1 PM - Ct 1
Minnehaha vs Champlin Park 2 PM - Ct 1
Hoops Training vs DeLaSalle 3 PM - Ct 1
Maple Grove vs Minnehaha 4 PM - Ct 1
Champlin Park vs Select 5 PM - Ct 1
Duluth East vs DeLaSalle 6 PM - Ct 1
Duluth East vs Select 8 PM - Ct 1

The buzz around Johnny Woodard of Duluth East has been huge this week. Get a chair on court 1 early for the 2 late games. Sean Kruger will have a name or 2 up his sleeve with his Select squad entering this week. Jordan Smith of Orono doubtful to play this week from what I'm told.

Saturday at Kennedy
Gamblers vs Raiders 2 PM - Ct 1
Waconia vs Baldwin-Woodville 3 PM - Ct 1
Raiders vs Burnsville 4 PM - Ct 2
Waconia vs Gamblers 5 PM - Ct 1
Burnsville vs Baldwin-Woodville 5 PM - Ct 2

Baldwin-Woodville showed they've got a nice club last week with a close loss to MTS (granted that was the 4th MTS game of the day). So that 3 PM game vs Waconia could be an interesting one.

Sunday at Forest Lake
Ellsworth vs Centennial 10 AM - Ct 1
Forest Lake vs Eastside (Stillwater) 10 AM - Ct 2
Cardinals vs Roseville 10 AM - Ct 3
Irondale vs North Branch 10 AM - Ct 4
Centennial vs Forest Lake Noon - Ct 1
Ellsworth vs Eastside Noon - Ct 2
Roseville vs Irondale Noon - Ct 3
Cardinals vs North Branch Noon - Ct 4

A very depleted league last week with Stillwater missing most of their guys, no Zach Riedeman from Forest Lake. Centennial does have a full crew though.

Czar Note: 9/25/09 I'm told that Centennial is without 5 of their top 8 guys.

Sunday at Hopkins
New Prague vs Rochester Mayo 1 PM - Ct 1
Waconia vs Lakeville South 1 PM - Ct 2
MDB White vs Owatonna 1 PM - Ct 3
Apple Valley vs Wayzata 2 PM - Ct 1
Mound Westonka vs Wolves 2 PM - Ct 2
Minnetonka vs Wizards 2 PM - Ct 3
Rochester Mayo vs Owatonna 3 PM - Ct 4
Waconia vs New Prague 3 PM - Ct 5
MDB White vs Lakeville South 3 PM - Ct 6
Mound Westonka vs Wayzata 4 PM - Ct 4
Minnetonka vs Wolves 4 PM - Ct 5
Apple Valley vs Wizards 4 PM - Ct 6

If Waconia has all their guys, look for that game with Lakeville South to be outstanding. Both teams are top heavy with juniors.

Sunday at Kennedy
SW Christian vs TWolves 1 PM - Ct 1
Prior Lake vs Holy Family White 1 PM - Ct 2
SW Christian vs Holy Family White 3 PM - Ct 1
Prior Lake vs TWolves 3 PM - Ct 2
Edina vs Holy Family Green 3 PM - Ct 3
Eden Prairie vs Mix 3 PM - Ct 4
Bethany vs Transitions 3 PM - Ct 5
Mix vs Holy Family Green 4 PM - Ct 3
Edina vs Panthers 4 PM - Ct 4
Eden Prairie vs Bethany 4 PM - Ct 5
Transitions vs Panthers 5 PM - Ct 5

It'll be very interesting to see where the Noreens play as they're scheduled for 2 and 4 at Hopkins and 3 and 5 at Kennedy. Let's hope Hopkins since that's where I'll be stationed.

Week 1 of 2009 Fall Leagues

From a Buddy Holly look-alike official, to kids coaching, to parents scorekeeping, it was an eventful week 1 in fall leagues this weekend. I'll spare you all the obvious Weezer reference, but I will tell you that Minnehaha's Parker Hines pulled double duty by coaching the JVs in the morning before playing in the afternoon session on Saturday. That's an idea that I like a lot for developing kids as leaders.

We had upsets, tight finishes and big performances. That included a kid who blew up huge on Sunday but is flying under the radar. D2s, if that name isn't on your radar, why not? I think the kid deserves that kind of look.

Read about all of it in my Minnesota Preps column (click here)

Also, I'm keeping my season totals up to date with fall league and AAU action this season. The 1st updates are posted here.

BTW, I feel like a total fool for mentioning Ellsworth, MN as playing the in the MYAS league in Forest Lake. Looks like they played in Sioux Falls. I'm a Wisconsin guy and I forgot Ellsworth, WI. DOH!

Issues with the game articles

I came across some very interesting articles recently regarding the biggest issues we face in the game.

1) Don Casey had some interesting thoughts on his "Temple of Zones" blog regarding how to regulate the summer. One that really caught my attention was to have the NFHS control the summer. Read all of his thoughts here.

2) Andy Katz of ESPN had a nice piece on how early agents start pursuing kids and the issues that come up from that. Read that article here.

3) The LA Times had a piece on how the rich keep getting richer with transfers. Since that's a hot topic here in the metro with certain schools, see how much of this article you think applies. Read it here.

Fall Leagues preview

This weekend kicks off fall leagues around the metro.

The MBA league is absolutely loaded with Champlin Park, Sibley, Orono, Duluth East, Minnehaha and DeLaSalle just to name a few. If I thought AAU days were long, how about that 8 AM to 8 PM schedule. OUCH!

I'm going to try and check in on some MYAS ball too as both divisions of their league are well stocked.

And being a Wisconsin guy, I will be checking in on Evan Anderson at the Magic fall league.

Check out my full preview on my GamefaceMN blog. Read it here.

2 Minnesota Stars commit

2 of Minnesota's top players in 2010 made their commitments over the last few days. Chad Calcaterra of Cloquet committed to Colorado State. Jacob Thomas of Columbia Heights committed to Long Beach State. Both of these came after long talk about them attending Minnesota. Here's an interesting perspective from Gopher writer Marcus Fuller of the Pioneer Press on their commitments.

Here's David Lavaque's Star Tribune article on Thomas signing with Long Beach State. It also includes an update on Calvin Godfrey who's now at Cooper instead of Armstrong as was initially reported (see the original here)

For an entire list of commitments from the class of 2010, click here.

Moats receives Mountain West offer

Class of 2011 scholarships starting to take some shape. Utah was in on Sunday to look at Waconia's Shelby Moats and liked what they saw enough to offer him.

Fall recruiting period kicks off

Today was the 1st day of the fall contact period for Division 2 schools. That goes through October 14th. The D1 schools have their contact period begin on Wednesday through October 5th. That will allow the D2 guys to be out watching the exposure camps this weekend in St. Cloud and at 43 Hoops.

Nov 9-11 for Division 2 schools (7 AM to 7 AM) and Nov 9-12 for the Division 1 schools are dead periods for the start of the early signing period. This year the early basketball signing dates are November 11th - November 18th.

Scout.com's latest top 100 for 2010

No Minnesotans in this edition of the Scout.com top 100 for 2010. No surprise there but the rankings aren't totally bare for Minnesota as we do have a player in the positional rankings. Drumroll please.

Kevin Noreen is the #26 Power Forward.

Here are the notables in the Scout.com list

Harrison Barnes #1 (no change)
Josh Selby #10 (no change)
Joe Jackson #17 (no change)
Vander Blue #27 (up from #47 in July)
Dwight Powell #45
Trevor Releford #50 (up from #72)
Tobi Oyedeji #68 (down from #58)
Alex Kirk #80 (down from #66)
Evan Anderson #90 (down from #70)
Anthony Johnson drops out

Lake Conference no more

From John Millea of the Star Tribune, all of the previous Lake conference members except Eden Prairie have decided to go their own way and add in Prior Lake for a new 10 team league. As Millea had previously reported, Prior Lake was looking to leave the Missota. Upon review, the Bloomington schools decided not to join the Missota and stuck with their Lake kin. Now we're back to 5 with Eden Prairie and the 4 ugly ducklings. How long until that group dissolves and we're back to square 1?

Czar's Note 9/3/09: According to the Pioneer Press, this new conference will be called the South Suburban Conference. How original but they outgrew Dakota County so that wouldn't work and Minnesota River was already taken. That gives us more suburban soup with the Classic Suburban, North Suburban, Northwest Suburban and their backwards cousin, the Suburban East. Let the remainder of the Lake schools call themselves the Suburban West and we'll have all the geography covered.

Former Milwaukee star transfers to the metro

From Wishoops.net, former UW-Milwaukee signee Calvin Godfrey has transferred to Armstrong. This was the 1 hole in the Falcons lineup. Expect him to be effective inside with all of the shooters that they feature.

(Czar's Note 9/2/09: Before transferring to a prep school out east Godfrey was ranked the 5th best prospect in Wisconsin by Wishoops.net)

The Czar goes Mobile

I'm excited to announce that The Czar has gone mobile.

First, for those of you who may read me on your phones while you're out and about, you can use this link, Czar On Your Phone, to read the scrolls in a mobile friendly format.

Better yet, I'm on Twitter now. I hope to bring you game updates, previews and post-game tidbits as I travel throughout the metro to enhance what I'm already doing here. I'll also throw in other updates and random hoops thoughts as well. But it will stay very basketball oriented. None of this "I'm sitting on the patio" nonsense. Check out my Twitter page here, Czar Tweets

Both of these links can be found in the "About the Czar" menu. Hope you enjoy them.

Is a Missota makeover next?

So its no secret that the suburban schools in the Missota have been growing like weeds (Farmington, Shakopee, Prior Lake) and could be outgrowing that league when compared to New Prague, Northfield etc. With that in mind, we get the news from John Millea that Prior Lake now wants out of the Missota and may look to join the potentially orphaned 5 (4 Classic Lake and Eden Prairie). He even mentions that the Bloomington schools may join the Missota instead of the new Dakota County Conference. That's a very interesting twist and to me somewhat baffling.

Combine that with news from Red Wing that the Wingers want out of the Missota too (competitive disadvantage with metro schools) and are looking at a return to the Big 9 (now 10). So put it all together and we could end up with this. Geographically I can buy this except Prior Lake. But Prior Lake comes in over 2000 in enrollment so moving in with the big west metros makes sense.

Dakota County Conference
Lakeville North
Lakeville South
Burnsville
Eagan
Apple Valley
Eastview
Rosemount
(7 defectors from the Lake to the new league)

Missota Conference
Shakopee
New Prague
Northfield
Farmington *** Move to Dakota County Conference would put both leagues at 8 teams, makes lots of sense for scheduling and competitive balance.
Holy Angels
Chaska
Chanhassen
Bloomington Jefferson
Bloomington Kennedy
(Hutchinson, Red Wing and Prior Lake out. Chaska, Chanhassen and the Bloomingtons in.)

(Classic) Lake Conference
Eden Prairie
Hopkins
Wayzata
Edina
Minnetonka
Prior Lake
(5 left overs from the Lake + Prior Lake)

Lake Conference, your move

So the MSHSL voted unanimously today (with the Lake Conference in attendance and not speaking) to move the remaining Classic Lake conference members to the Lake Conference in 2010-2011. Now the threat of all the current members leaving and sticking Eden Prairie with the newcomers looms large. As I wrote in July, this would could start the mess all over again.

More from John Millea of the Star Tribune on the reaction here.

Chaska star makes Rivals Top 150

Rivals released their post summer 2009 top 100 for the class of 2011. Chaska's Ross Travis makes the list after a big summer with 43 Hoops Carr. He comes in at #133. Rivals analyst Jerry Meyer was impressed with him in Vegas.

Here are others who have appeared locally.

#7 Bradley Beal
#16 Branden Dawson
#20 Quinn Cook
#24 Myck Kabongo - Committed to Texas
#116 Darell Longstreet

Read the entire rankings here.
Read Jerry Meyer's comments on Ross Travis in Vegas here (scroll to the end)